Let's unlock the potential of vulnerability at work!

63% of French people who have been through a vulnerable situation that affected their working life feel that the support they received from their employer was not enough. This figure reveals a deep gap between organisations' stated intentions and the real experience of their employees.

Bereavement, illness, burnout, separation, the role of carer, assisted reproduction journeys, financial hardship, addiction, and more. These situations are neither marginal nor exceptional. They touch everyone, employees in every company, at every level of the hierarchy, in every profession. And yet they often remain invisible, rarely spoken about and inadequately supported.

Here we share a few pieces of advice for doing better. This content comes directly from the discussion between Pascaline de Broissia (L'Équipage) and Éric Coisne (RAISE), guests of Morning's Bureau des Talents, hosted by Mélanie Nabucet (HR at Morning) on 15 January 2026. This round table devoted to vulnerability offered a shift in perspective and practical levers for weaving vulnerability into your organisation's practices. Audio recordings of our two speakers round out the written summary of their remarks.

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A shift in perspective 

84% of French people still associate vulnerability with something negative. This perception is no accident. It is the product of a professional culture, and indeed a wider one, that prizes mastery, certainty, unbroken performance and self-control.

From the moment we enter the world of work, an implicit message is often passed on: emotions, frailties and personal difficulties must be left at the office door. As if we could compartmentalise our lives, leave our "personal baggage" at the bottom of the lift and then function as neutral, rational individuals.

Yet this view is out of step with human reality. We are not two separate people at the office and at home. Life's trials inevitably reach into the professional sphere: they affect our attention, our energy, our motivation and our relationships with others.

Shifting our view of vulnerability means recognising that fragility is part of the human experience, and that it can become a collective resource when it is welcomed within a safe framework.

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Pascaline de Broissia, on the lack of awareness around vulnerability.

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Vulnerability as a binding force within the company

When it is acknowledged and supported, vulnerability becomes a genuine force for a company's cohesion and momentum. 

First, it strengthens trust and bonds. Daring to say that you're going through a difficult time opens up a more authentic kind of relationship. It creates closeness, reduces the things left unsaid and encourages mutual support.

It also improves the collective's adaptability. An organisation able to listen to weak signals, adjust its ways of working and take individual realities into account is more resilient in the face of crises and change.

It contributes, too, to psychological safety, the recognised bedrock of lasting performance. Being able to say "I don't know", "I didn't understand", "I need help" without fear of penalty. This is the foundation of all cooperation, the ideal ground for every future initiative.

Finally, vulnerability unlocks creative potential. By allowing for uncertainty, doubt and experimentation, it opens the way to new ideas and jointly built solutions. This reality had already been brought to light by Project Aristotle, run by Google in 2012: the common denominator of the highest-performing teams is psychological safety.

Within these teams, everyone has the right to make mistakes. In other words, no one is held to a stance of invulnerability or all-powerfulness. Employees can put forward an idea, offer a hypothesis or ask a question without fearing judgement, failure or having their legitimacy called into question.

This climate of trust is a prerequisite for innovation. A company that innovates is, by definition, a company in which many projects come to nothing. 

Failure is an integral part of the process. Conversely, when there is no right to make mistakes, teams censor themselves. They favour tried-and-tested, reassuring solutions at the expense of the risk-taking that is nonetheless necessary. And without uncertainty, innovation is impossible.

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5 tips for weaving vulnerability into your company

1. Embody vulnerability (for leaders)

This is the essential starting point: if leaders and members of the executive committee never show their doubts or their limits, it is unrealistic to expect employees to do so.

Embodying vulnerability doesn't mean offloading your emotions onto your teams, but accepting that you don't have all the answers, and saying so.

Hubert de Boisredon, head of the Armor group, explains in his book Le Courage des Chefs how a seemingly simple question — "How would you do it?" — profoundly transformed his relationship with his teams and the quality of internal dialogue.

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Eric Coisne, on how leaders should approach vulnerability.

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Beyond leaders, everyone can embody and acknowledge their vulnerability in their own way. In practical terms, this can come down to simple gestures:

• Saying "I don't know" in a meeting
• Sharing strategic questions and seeking your teams' views
• Acknowledging uncertainty rather than feigning total command

2. Create spaces of psychological safety

Vulnerability can only be expressed within a safe framework. Without that safety, it is harder, not to say impossible, to open up without fearing that you'll be judged, penalised or sidelined.

Creating this safety doesn't necessarily require heavy-handed schemes, but regular, sincere practices.

Several simple levers can open up this space:

• Regular one-to-ones, with an empathetic question:
  "How are you feeling at the moment? Is there anything I should know?"
  Asked consistently, this question becomes a signal that it's OK to speak up.
  
  
• Dedicated group time for sharing, such as workshops, talking circles or more informal formats. They help to normalise the expression of frailties and to break out of isolation.

However, creating a safe space is not enough if you can't detect the weak signals. You can only support what you can see, and a large part of vulnerability remains silent.

This is where certain tools support managerial attentiveness:

• Regular internal barometers. Their strength lies in their simplicity and their repetition. What matters is not the raw score, but how it changes over time. A gradual, repeated decline can reveal distress before it is explicitly voiced.
  
  
• Analysing verbatim comments. Certain phrases are valuable indicators:
  "My work feels less meaningful", "I'm sleeping badly", "I feel less like coming to work".
  
  
• Appointing a clearly identified point of contact, along the lines of what already exists for harassment or internal abuse. A trained, neutral person to whom employees can turn without going through their direct line manager.

These tools do not create psychological safety on their own. They do, however, make it possible to pick up weak signals before they turn into critical situations.

3. Train managers in the art of listening

Managers are on the front line when it comes to vulnerability, yet they are rarely trained to support it. Most management training still overlooks this human dimension.

Training managers means giving them reference points, tools and, above all, a way of showing up.

Short training courses can be put in place, notably around Nonviolent Communication (NVC). This approach helps you to identify your own emotions and needs, to listen without interpreting or judging, and to set a clear framework without aggression. It invites you to slow down and ask the right questions before acting.

A key point is to work on the manager's "right place": neither positioning yourself as a saviour nor slipping into avoidance, but supporting through co-construction.

Faced with a vulnerable situation, one of the most common reflexes is to want to "do the right thing" quickly. Reorganising the team, cutting off communication, deciding on a protective way of working. 

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. A frequent mistake is to try to protect someone by deciding on their behalf. Some managers will, for instance, gather up all of a team's messages to pass on to a colleague who is unwell, so as to spare them any bother. Yet that person will, on the contrary, want news from everyone, and such a move can ultimately be read as abandonment. To illustrate this point, Pascaline de Broissia quoted Nelson Mandela: "Everything that is done for me without me is done against me." 

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Mélanie Nabucet, on the link between vulnerability and Nonviolent Communication.

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4. Tailor your support‍

Vulnerability cannot be standardised. Two people facing a similar situation, illness, bereavement, exhaustion, will not necessarily have the same needs, the same pace or the same expectations of their work and their colleagues.

The first question to ask is not "What can I put in place?" but: "What can I do for you, today?"

This question opens up a space for dialogue in which the employee remains an active part of their own support. In particular, it helps to clarify how they wish to stay connected with the team: 

• The preferred channels (email, message, call, WhatsApp)
• How often to be in touch
• The people they wish to stay in contact with

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Pascaline de Broissia, on finding tailored solutions.

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It is just as important to accept that these needs change. The first few days of an ordeal are often marked by a kind of shock. Then come other phases: a need for connection, a need for meaning, a desire to gradually take up a place again within the group.

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Pascaline de Broissia, on the importance of listening to people's needs.

5. Encourage solidarity between peers

Support from colleagues is often felt to be more helpful than that of management or HR. The absence of any hierarchical stake makes it easier to speak up and to help one another.

This starts with simple, informal rituals:

• Team lunches
• Coffees with no agenda
• Walks together

These informal spaces are often where words flow most freely, where a colleague can say "things aren't great at the moment" without it immediately taking on an institutional dimension.

It's also about valuing mutual support as a skill in its own right. Caring for others, knowing how to listen, spotting a colleague in difficulty, this is an essential contribution to the smooth running of the collective.

The metaphor of the piece of paper on the floor is quite telling: in a small outfit, everyone picks it up. In a large one, everyone assumes "someone else will deal with it". With vulnerability, the risk is the same. It must not become the sole preserve of HR.

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Eric Coisne, on the importance of individual responsibility within large companies.

Towards a new company model

In Japan, the art of kintsugi consists of repairing broken objects with gold powder. The cracks are not hidden away: they become visible and precious.

A company that embraces vulnerability works in the same way. It doesn't seek to mask frailties, but to support them so as to turn them into points of strength.

Embracing vulnerability doesn't mean giving up on performance. It means choosing a performance built on trust, cooperation, psychological safety and creativity.

It also means recognising that we are not machines, but human beings shaped by life's trials, and that these trials, when supported with care, can strengthen the whole collective.

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Eric Coisne, on vulnerability and the Japanese technique of kintsugi.

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